Trump's Card

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

[caja-dglh]

If by "something", she means 45's removal for office or conviction, I'm afraid that she is going to be disappointed.

There are, however, already a number of formerly important people who will do time in federal prison, and more on the way.

Yeah, I suspect her hopes are at that level. My stretch expectation is that he gets into his family. That is when it will get very entertaining.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I am kind of disturbed to learn that the unique thing about knickers is not that he's tall, but that he's old. Apparently he's just a slightly bigger version of what an 8 year old steer would look like if they weren't all killed at 2.

[ursus arctos]

In some ways it is heart-warming to know that decades in the belly of the NYC beast hasn't eradicated her earnest Midwestern belief in just deserts.

[ursus arctos]

Berba, are you suggesting that the Chinese Inperial Court was full of Knickers-sized eunuchs?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I don't know, but some Holstein Cows can be quite big. I knew cows were big bastards, but I didn't realise we killed Bullocks long before they reached their maximum size.

[Lang Spoon]

Yeah, I suspect her hopes are at that level. My stretch expectation is that he gets into his family. That is when it will get very entertaining.

Trump would definitely let Jared hang. He’s probably mad jealous of him anyways. I’d imagine Jr will be pardoned before he has to wear orange more than a minute.

[Satchmo Distel]

Jared going to jail would remove the competition for Ivanka's affections and she might seek some comforting.

Pardoning Junior has been discussed above - not straightforward at all.

Comey is the Joel Garner of the story but can he bowl some yorkers?

45 won't go to jail but I like the idea of him being legally harrassed until he dies.

[Gerontophile]

Poor Michael Cohen. I suppose he should have remembered that sammy Gravano helped wipe out a lot of the gambino family in court, and still had to do 5 years, or that Joe Valachi broke Omerta and became a tv star, but still died in Jail. He may never have heard of the latter, but I don't see how he could have missed the second one.

The song and video weren't THAT bad.

[ursus arctos]

Harris (the Republican in NC-9) now reportedly supporting a new election, which gives one a sense of how dirty the first one must have been.

[Gerontophile]

But Harris must win, right? Or, why would a Republican, cave?

Or someone is really looking ahead.

[ursus arctos]

I think he’s more concerned about going to prison than about the final result for the seat.

[Gerontophile]

I would suggest that the words 'seat', and 'prison', are going to employ a little more of someone's time, than would be regular.

[Satchmo Distel]

Ursus, how do you think the Mueller revelations will affect Trump's 2020 chances, if at all?

[ursus arctos]

First of all, remember that I'm the one who thought that there was a real chance of them 25th Anendmenting him after the tax cuts, so my predictions may not even be worth the zero you pay for them.

That said, I think that it depends on how the indictments play out, and particularly what happens with pardons.

The GOP doesn’t seem at all eager to reflect on how he toxic he was in the midterms, yet one has to think that there are people in the party who realise that 2020 could worse if he is leading the ticket. At the same time, it looks as nothing short of a temendous overreach will inspire anyone serious to challenge the cult of personality that is the GOP base. The fact that Pence is such an empty vessel and that many of the other contenders failed soo abysmally in the primaries doesn’t help.

One thing that I am sure of is that we will continue to see legislative coups and aggressive voter suppression efforts from Republican-controlled state legislatures desperate to hang on and to control redistricting after the 2020 census.

[San Bernardhinault]

Harris (the Republican in NC-9) now reportedly supporting a new election, which gives one a sense of how dirty the first one must have been.

A really cynical part of me wonders if the Republican Party at large knew about this fraud all along. And once the election was a blow-out they decided to sacrifice NC-9:

A 35 or 37 seat majority makes no difference. But having the public know that election fraud happens, and hammering the message that we need to stop election corruption, might really help sell those Republican voter-suppression tactics wrapped up as election protection. Having it be a Republican being corrupt means that they can claim that it's not partisan.

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't think so. They will argue "Look, we want to put in protections - even if it means us losing our own house seats like NC-9". They will argue that their protections are "necessary" even if it damages themselves.

[ursus arctos]

Kelly to leave the White House at year end.

[ursus arctos]

[anton pulisov]

I don't subscribe to the idea of politicians being has-beens just because of their age. Similarly, a young politician doesn't represent renewal just because of their age.

There are failed, has-been ideas that can be represented by politicians of any age.

[That Night In Barcelona]

I don't subscribe to the idea of politicians being has-beens just because of their age. Similarly, a young politician doesn't represent renewal just because of their age.

There are failed, has-been ideas that can be represented by politicians of any age.

Beto is a good example of this - there's strikingly little original or left-wing in his ideas. Sanders, on the other hand, is one of the few national Democrat figures who supports Medicare for All, which itself is supported by 70% of the Democrat base. Hilary meanwhile is posting grim Facebook memes about 'affordable' health care being a human right, and blaming the refugees from her wars in the Middle East for the rise of facism in Europe.

[Satchmo Distel]

All true, but as Ursus has noted in the past, elections are not won by policy "platforms".

[anton pulisov]

Yeah, Beto takes quite a bit out of the "red state blue state" and "yes we can" Obama playbook. In other words, he sounds like he's saying a lot, but he really isn't The one thing that Beto does have going for him however is that he doesn't take PAC money.

Would like to see Tulsi Gabbard have a go, but as people have pointed out, policy only gets you halfway there. She doesn't have much in the way of charisma.

Sanders has charisma in spades, but he is fairly old.

[NHH]

Gabbard also has the Modi-loving Hindu nationalist schtick to deal with

[Amor de Cosmos]

There's also the issue of people in their seventies and beyond making governance decisions for those in their forties and younger. Yeah, some of us are still empathetic and sentient but we don't have our "hands on the wheels." We don't, can't, understand contemporary issues on a practical level. We can, and should, be there to consult and advise but that's all.